A variety of involvement action devices or wheel-like elements that display information or advertising material are known. Involvement action devices include wheel-like elements which are manually rotated by the user and provide varying elements of information. However, it has been discovered that while such involvement action devices are popular, there are problems associated with their use, including frequent breakage and great expense of manufacture, and lengthy time for production.
There are presently available devices having manually rotatable internal wheel-like elements that display information or advertising indicia. For example, Bradley U.S. Pat. No. 1,715,737 and Sulger U.S. Pat. No. 2,748,514 illustrate devices having manually rotatable internal wheel-like elements. However, these devices each contemplate having a fixed pivot, in the nature of a rivet or the like, for rotatably mounting the rotatable element to the advertising device's carrier.
Other rotatable wheel elements include devices having a wheel which is secured by flanges that project around the perimeter of the wheel. However, these devices, as well as those of the prior art cited above are relatively costly to manufacture and break easily due to their particular type of construction, and have lengthy production times.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an information or advertising display device having a wheel element that is pivotless, providing a unique method of manufacturing compared to current methods of manufacture.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an information or advertising display device including a pivotless wheel element that is manually rotatable and mounted in a circular pocket formed in the device, whereby the pocket forms an internal locking device for the wheel element, by means of precise die cutting, gluing, folding and trimming, all in one pass on a web press. A support guide is located along the perimeter of the circular pocket to help guide the wheel during rotation of the wheel.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a pivotless wheel element for an indicia display device that is die-cut from a single sheet of flat paper stock.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a pivotless wheel element that is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, and is capable of being produced in mass quantities within a short period of time compared to the standard method, which involves slower and costly production procedures.